I am a bit confused about how these powerline networking installations work in terms of network topology - is it effectively a ring network, or do Homeplugs operate in a pair, making for a very long network cable?
For example, I am interested in the WD LiveWire, but on its own two of these LiveWire boxes won't cover all locations in my house:
- Two devices at one location
- Four devices at another location
- Internet router at a third location (why the builder put the only phone socket in the garage I'll never understand!)
Our router already comes with its own powerline networking solution, but I am not sure which standard it uses underneath (the router is a Freebox V4 from the French ISP free.fr) in order that it can communicate with the TV decoder at location 1.
So my questions are:
- Can I plug in the two LiveWire boxes at locations 1 and 2, and plug a third HomePlugAV device in to the router and allow all devices to communicate with each other?
- Do different networking standards tend to ignore each other? Could a HomePlugAV network coexist on the same cabling as the unidentified existing network, even if the two networks can't see each other?
